Skip to content
Home » What If 70% Of The Universe Isn’t Dark Energy After All?

What If 70% Of The Universe Isn’t Dark Energy After All?

Dark Energy
Source : medium

Until  now,  researchers  have  believed  that  dark  energy’  accounted  for  nearly  70%  of  the  ever-accelerating,  expanding  universe. For many-years, this mechanism has  been  associated-with  the  so called  cosmological  constant,  which  Einstein -developed  in  1917,  which  refers  to  an  unknown  repellant  cosmic  power.

But  because  the  cosmological-constant known  as  dark  energy—cannot  be  measured  directly,  numerous  researchers,  including  Einstein,  have  doubted  its  existence—without  being  able  to  suggest  a  viable  alternative.

Until  now.  For  the  new-study,  University  of  Copenhagen  researchers  tested  a  model  that  replaces  dark-energy  with  a  dark-matter  in  the  form  of  magnetic  forces.  Their  paper  on  the  work  has  not  yet-been  published,  but  is  available  on  arXiv.

Researchers  know  that  dark  energy  is  not  magnetic  in  the  traditional-sense,  where  a  north seeking-pole  repels  another  north seeking-pole,  while  attracting  a  south-seeking  pole.  This  special  type  of  magnetism  relates  to  a  force  that  always  repels,  &  in  so  doing,  expands  the  universe  as  opposed  to  maintaining-its-limits.

“If  what  we  discovered  is  accurate,  it  would  upend  our-belief  that  what  we  thought  made  up  70%  of  the  universe  does  not  actually-exist.  We  have  removed  dark  energy  from  the  equation  &  added  in  a  few  more  properties  for  dark  matter.  This  appears  to  have  the  same  effect  upon  the  universe’s  expansion  as  dark  energy,”  explains  Steen  Harle  Hansen,  an  associate-professor  at  the  Niels  Bohr  Institute’s  DARK  Cosmology  Centre.

The  usual  understanding  of  how  the  universe’s  energy  is  distributed  is  that  it  consists  of  5%  normal  matter,  25%  dark  matter, &  70%  dark  energy.

In  the  new  model,  the  25%  share  of  dark  matter‘  is  accorded  special  qualities  that  make  the  70%  of  dark  energy-redundant.

“We  don’t  know  much about  dark matter other than that it is a heavy  &  slow  particle.  But  then  we  wondered—what  if  dark  matter  had  some  quality  that  was  analogous  to  magnetism in it?  We  know  that  as  normal  particles  move  around,  they  create-magnetism.  And, magnets  attract  or  repel  other  magnets—so  what  if  that’s  what’s  going on in the universe?  That  this  constant  expansion  of  dark  matter  is  occurring  thanks to some sort of magnetic force?” asks Hansen.

Hansen’s question served as the foundation of the new computer model, where  researchers included everything that they  know  about  the  universe-including-gravity,  the speed of the universe’s  expansion,  and X, the unknown-force that expands the  universe.

“We developed-a-model that worked from the assumption that dark-matter-particles  have a type of magnetic  force & investigated what effect this force would have on the  universe. It turns out that it would have exactly the same effect on the speed of the  university’s expansion as we know from dark energy,” explains Hansen.

However, there is still a lot about this mechanism that the researchers don’t understand.  And it all needs to be checked in better-models that take more factors-into-consideration.

“Honestly, our-discovery may just be a coincidence,” says Hansen.“But if it isn’t, it is truly  incredible. It would-change our understanding of the universe’s  composition & why it is-expanding. As far as our current-knowledge, our ideas about dark matter’ with a type  of magnetic force & the idea about dark energy are equally-wild. Only more detailed-observations will determine which of these models is the more-realistic. So, it will be  incredibly-exciting  to re-test our result.”

The findings are reported on University of Copenhagen

Tags: